I travelled to St Brides in South Wales today with a friend, solely because we both fancied spending a couple of nights sleeping in a lighthouse. It's not a working lighthouse and nor is it a haunted lighthouse built on a plutonium mine. It's a disused lighthouse that has been converted into a bed and breakfast. What better reason to travel 150 miles to an area that you know little about than this? I'll answer that rhetorical (well not anymore) question for you - There is no better reason.
I had hoped we'd be sleeping at the top of the lighthouse, in with the light and thus unable to sleep due to the constant circulating glare. But alas we were roomed elsewhere, the lighthouse having an unusual design, not being all that tall and with a lower half with an unusually large circumference (see
http://www.westusklighthouse.co.uk/ )
It sounded like a weird place on the website (flotation tanks! alternative therapies! the fact this all happens in a mutated lighthouse!) which I imagined being run by some characters who would not look out of place on "The League of Gentlemen" and I was not disappointed. It was run by all of the characters from "The League of Gentlemen". No, not really.
It was actually run by a slightly grumpy woman (grumpy because we arrived at 2pm, unwittingly some two and a half hours before official checking in time) and an extremely polite and helpful man. If "The League of Gentlemen" had tried to use them as characters, everyone would have said, "What's going on? Why are you suddenly going into a sketch with some perfectly normal and nice people - you know, unless provoked when they're a bit grumpy - with no sinister undertones at all?"
And the men from "The League of Gentlemen" would have to say, "Sorry, I don't know what we were thinking. Did we mention they had a flotation tank?"
"Yes, you did," the people would respond with crossed arms and stern faces.
"That's not enough then?" the League of Gentlemen would ask as one.
"No it isn't," the people would reply, except for one bloke who would say, "Actually I really liked it. I could see what you were doing, you know, satirising normality and the audience's expectations. But then I'm clearly cleverer than the other people here.
And "The League of Gentlemen" would look at each other and then say, "Yes, well done, that is what we were doing. What you just said. Even so we're not going to use them in the next series."
"Good!" the people would explain, except for the one bloke who would say "Ohh!" before adding, "Can you say "Hello Dave" now? Not all of you. Just the one of you that does that."
Then he might say it or he might not. I don't know. I'm not Nostradamus. I can't see the future. You'll have to wait and see.
Anyway, I am on holiday. In a lighthouse. The one vacation that you can pretty much guarantee won't be ruined by a large ship running through the wall of your bedroom. Yeah, I can see all the rest of you with your non-lighthouse based holidays are looking pretty envious right now. And won't be able to sleep for fear of the ship through the wall scenario that I have just mentioned. Well cheg on!
